The Phonebook in Iceland

Oliver and I have both become a little obsessed with the Icelandic scheme for assigning names to children. When I first read that one side-effect of this is that the telephone books are sorted by first name here I didn’t believe it, but yesterday I got a chance to open one up, and it’s true:

Iceland Phone Book: Sorted by First Name

Peter Rukavina

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Submitted by Bruno Figueiredo (not verified) on

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By the way, what are the little white crosses on red squares? I’m curious.

Submitted by oliver (not verified) on

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Listing by first name might be more practical in Iceland, traditionally at least. Are there very many traditional Icelandic last names? Also there’s the potential confusion of Peter/”Son of Peter”/”From Peter’s Town” that might make last names less reliably memorable.

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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